 |
| Image compiled by JOHN CAPPER |
Hi Dave, The Croxton Hall post has quite intrigued me. I managed to find a map from 1898 and overlaid it on Google Earth. You can see the Hall was on the flat area behind the trees. I thought you might like to see this.
Many thanks to John for putting this image together. We've marked the position of Croxton Weir (or 'Croxton Water Fall') with an X.
The Old Hall (if that is the building shown in the photograph), while not as far away from the river as the present farm, still looks a little too distant.
This, of course, may be the 'foreshortening' effect we keep mentioning, caused by the type of lens used by the cameraman.
John's diagram also shows the course of the mill race running down from the River Dane and under Croxton Lane to serve the Flint Mill which stood where the river and the Trent & Mersey Canal cross at Croxton Aqueduct.
Jim Moores has recently been down to the area and taken some photos of the Croxton Water Fall as it is today:
Note that Jim's picture shows part of the retaining wall on the opposite bank of the river. The problem is that it doesn't look like the wall in the original photograph, possibly due to subsequent re-building.
In recent photographs, and indeed when glimpsed in real-life from the Croxton Lane bridge, the 'water fall' does not appear as deep as it does in the old photo. In this case we can't blame any differences in perspective: that 'Water Fall' has physically changed in the intervening years, and the water level in the lower part of the river appears to be much higher than it used to be. Is that sloping part of the weir, which probably inspired someone to call it a 'water fall' in the first place, still there under the water?.
Here's a comparison of the original photo with a recent one taken by Jim, illustrating how anyone could be forgiven for not recognising the 'water fall' immediately from that old picture post-card:
SEE ALSO:
CROXTON FLINT MILL
CANALS AND RIVERS OF MIDDLEWICH
Many thanks to John for putting this image together. We've marked the position of Croxton Weir (or 'Croxton Water Fall') with an X.
The Old Hall (if that is the building shown in the photograph), while not as far away from the river as the present farm, still looks a little too distant.
John's diagram also shows the course of the mill race running down from the River Dane and under Croxton Lane to serve the Flint Mill which stood where the river and the Trent & Mersey Canal cross at Croxton Aqueduct.
Jim Moores has recently been down to the area and taken some photos of the Croxton Water Fall as it is today:
In recent photographs, and indeed when glimpsed in real-life from the Croxton Lane bridge, the 'water fall' does not appear as deep as it does in the old photo. In this case we can't blame any differences in perspective: that 'Water Fall' has physically changed in the intervening years, and the water level in the lower part of the river appears to be much higher than it used to be. Is that sloping part of the weir, which probably inspired someone to call it a 'water fall' in the first place, still there under the water?.
Here's a comparison of the original photo with a recent one taken by Jim, illustrating how anyone could be forgiven for not recognising the 'water fall' immediately from that old picture post-card:
Now and Then: Can this really be the same place?
SEE ALSO:
CROXTON FLINT MILL
CANALS AND RIVERS OF MIDDLEWICH
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteThe 'mystery' surrounding the Croxton waterfall and the differences in the two pictures (the old postcard and a more recent picture of the waterfall) has led to numerous theories to explain the anomaly. In some ways the person that came closest to solving the mystery was the person who wrote "Now and Then: Can this really be the same place?".
The explanation for the differences in the appearance of the waterfall can be traced back to the original photographer mislabelling the photograph. As a result a photograph that was taken of the waterfall which is next to St Leonard's Church, School Lane, Warmingham Cheshire was later used for the postcard showing "Croxton Water Fall, Middlewich.
Therefore the answer to the mystery is that they are not actually of the same place, and the house that is in the background of the postcard can still be seen from the bridge which is opposite the Bears Paw in Warmingham.
Regards,
Harry Random
Wow! Many thanks, 'Harry'. We could have been talking about this for years to come and never got to the bottom of the 'mystery'. The one explanation that never occurred to anyone, and least of all to me, is that the waterfall which was tantalising and vexing us all so much wasn't actually in Middlewich at all!
Delete